alt Hacker NewsThe purpose of a system is what it does.
Undermining data protection and privacy is clearly the point. The fact that it's happening everywhere at the same time makes it look to me like a bunch of leaders got together and decided that online anonymity is a problem.
It's not like kids having access to adult content is a new problem after all. Every western government just decided that we should do something about it at roughly the same time after decades of indifference.
The "age verification" story is casus belli. This is about ID, political dissent, and fears of people being exposed to the wrong brand of propaganda.
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> The purpose of a system is what it does.
How far does it go? Are all bugs features? Shall we assume that Boeing (via MCAS) and Ford (via the Pinto) were trying to kill their passengers? There's a difference between ulterior motive and incompetent execution of expressed intention.
Exactly. So many comments here about technical solutions are missing the underlying government/authority problem, or are actively a part of it.
> The fact that it's happening everywhere at the same time makes it look to me like a bunch of leaders got together and decided that online anonymity is a problem.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public." - Adam Smith
No, this is proven false by reducing this theory to the individual level. Anyone who has tried to design/imagine -> actually build something, be it an artist, architect, song writer, programmer, or otherwise, knows there is inevitably a gap between design and realization. No one involved in that process would at any point consider the gap to be part of its “purpose”.
People do hide their intentions but that doesn’t give us a license to reduce complex system dynamics to absurdities.
You are missing the profit driven angle. Age verification companies and their lobbyists are pouring massive amounts of resources into lobbying for mandatory age verification. And the reason why can be pretty simple. They get richer of off violating people's privacy, especially when those privacy violations are legally required.